Remote patient management enables a clinician, such as a physician, nurse, or other healthcare provider, to follow patient well-being through homecare medical devices that can collect and forward patient data without requiring the presence or assistance of medical personnel. Remote patient management can be provided over a data communications network, such as the Internet. One or more medical devices per patient are remotely interconnected with a centralized server via dedicated patient management devices, such as repeaters, installed in patients' homes. The patient management devices supplement traditional programmers that interrogate patient medical devices in-clinic. This infrastructure allows patient well-being to be continually monitored and centrally analyzed by professional healthcare staff without the costs of office visits.
Patient physiometry can be measured and recorded through dedicated sensors or sensors incorporated into a medical therapy device, such as a pacemaker or defibrillator. The recorded patient physiometry is periodically uploaded to dedicated patient management devices for local analysis and relay to the centralized server. Thus, to effect remote patient management, each patient management device must be able to interface remotely to the centralized server and locally to the sensors and patient therapy devices.
Ensuring the operability of remote and local interfaces is a prerequisite to providing remote patient care. Existing remote care environment setup requires manual configuration and testing of each component and places the onus on the patient to ensure satisfactory operation. Pragmatically, individual patients, particularly those who are aged, infirm, or handicapped, are not necessarily technically savvy and could be challenged if required to manually set up a remote management environment. Nevertheless, a caregiver must still ensure that each patient management device can connect to both the centralized server and to each of the sensors and patient therapy devices before beginning remote care and establishing service. The caregiver must also address anomalies occurring during setup. However, to minimize time, cost, and resources expended, only those anomalies that result in a complete failure of operation should be escalated.
Setup is only the first step in providing remote care. The configurations and settings of the devices can change over time. Existing devices may be removed or replaced and new devices may be added. The operational parameters or firmware might respectively require reprogramming or patching. Each change potentially entails redoing the setup and requiring a patient to manually swap out devices can be expensive, time-consuming, and impracticable.
Following successful setup, the patient, or attendant, where applicable, must to be trained on the proper operation of the patient management device and patient-operable sensors and medical therapy devices. Effective training, as well as testing, requires instruction and practice, but using live data can needlessly consume resources or affect patient well being if incorrectly performed.
Therefore, there is a need for facilitating transparent and automated setup of a remote patient care environment for patients that can support both initial and subsequent installation and configuration of sensors, patient therapy devices, and patient management devices.